Results from a new study suggest that one of the most prescribed medications for alcohol dependence may be more effective in some people. Preliminary results show that naltrexone (Revia), one of the only medications approved for treating people with alcohol abuse problems, may only be effective in women and those with a specific genetic variation. The new study, conducted by researchers from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) and McGill University, will be published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Previous work suggested that naltrexone only helped some people with alcohol problems, but the reason for that was unclear. ”Our results suggest that we might now be able to predict beforehand who will benefit most,” says Dr. Marco Leyton, lead investigator of the study and a researcher in the Mental Illnesses and Addiction axis at the RI MUHC. ”We were quite excited to find that our results supported that naltrexone was specifically effective in women and in people who carried a gene related to the brain’s natural morphine system called the mu opioid receptor gene (OPRM1).”

A year and a half a ago, Julie Gronski was driving home drunk from a Halloween party, slammed into a couple of people walking along the side of the road, and took off. Her claim was that she thought she hit a deer, and didn’t feel the need to stop. This makes a hell-of-a-lotta sense because, who ever stops after hitting a deer to check on the condition of their car, or the welfare of the deer? I’m not sure what her excuse was for not reporting the accident for four days after sobering up, and for never turning herself in to police, only to get arrested for the hit-and-run after others tipped off the police.

Naturally, she managed to plea her way down to some community service and coerced membership into Alcoholics Anonymous. Earlier this week, Julie was cited for speeding on her way to an AA meeting, and also slapped with a charge of driving under a suspended license. In a fit of rigorous honesty™, she claimed ignorance to the fact that her license was suspended. Now she is using her involvement in AA, and the fact that she is now a sponsor who was simply shuttling her pigeons to and fro, as reason to cut her some slack. From her attorney:

He said Gronski was being a good Samaritan when she got a call saying that three people she knew needed a ride to their Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. She borrowed her father’s car and got pulled over by police for speeding.

“Her whole life now is doing community service,” Malban said. “She’s attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and sponsoring a couple of others in A.A. She does buses and gets rides everywhere. The only reason she was driving this time was to get others to A.A. She borrowed her father’s car. … They have to prove that violation of probation was an intentional and inexcusable act.”

So, if she was unaware that her license was suspended, why would she suddenly start taking the bus and get rides everywhere she goes (except of course, for this single altruistic carpooling act)? Her explanation doesn’t sound very honest to me; but it does sound rigorously honest™.